I’m not a nostalgic person. I mean, I do watch a 90s movie every couple months. I’ve been known to flip through a Choose Your Own Adventure book on my lunch break at work. If “Regulate” by Warren G shows up on a playlist, I will sing along to every word. Good art is good art, no matter when it was made.

But, as I said, I’m not a nostalgic person.

To my mind, the past is the past, the future is the future, and the only thing we have control over is what is happening now. You can learn from the past. Find mistakes. Patch them up as best you can then carry a bad memory forward that’ll remind you not to do it again. But it isn’t a fun place to live, as Jeremy Hahn learns in this week’s episode.

As I said in my recent essay, I think nostalgia can keep you stuck in the past. Sure, the “good ol’ days” were pretty good. Great, even! But what does that matter to now? To here? To us? How many people get lost in the past, preferring fuzzy memories over a sharp, in-focus present?

I think nostalgia is bad, even though I’m a nostalgic person. I don’t see it as a contradiction. I see it as good tension, a lens that helps me constantly question my relationship with nostalgia and the actions I take (or don’t) because of it.

I get into this on a deeper level in this week’s episode. Make sure to stick around for the aftershow too. I have an announcement.

Zarvan’s Time Repair

Twenty-four years old and sleeping on his sister Aurora’s couch, Jeremy Hahn is exactly the kind of guy who needs a miracle. What he gets is Zarvan, a clock shop owner who may or may not be a cosmic entity, and an offer that sounds insane: go back to 2016, find the moment the whole thing went sideways, and put it right. But one choice leads to others, and as Jeremy takes a speed run at a new future, he begins to wonder if the past is best left in the past, after all.

After the story, creator Bill Meeks pulls back the curtain on the real Los Angeles storefront that inspired Zarvan’s shop, the obscure Canadian sci-fi series that gave him the story engine, and how this episode weaves together threads from across the Everly Heights universe as the last few pieces snap into place.

NEXT TIME: In a small town, gossip isn’t actually A Secret to Everybody.

LINKS
Web
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
YouTube (with video aftershow)

Now, if you need me, I’ll be finishing up the animated version of next week’s Zelda-inspired episode. Subscribe on YouTube to watch it when it drops.

See you next week!

Bill Meeks
billmeeks.com | everlyheights.tv